JYOTISH DUTTA

Vivian Maier...street photographer extraordianaire, discovered posthumously, shot more than 150000 photographs which, surprisingly, she never published. It seems that many of her negatives never made it to print.   She kept all her work to herself. An artist, in contrast, today spends a lot of time and effort in promoting himself or herself and his or her art through various mediums of communication. In the present day scenario, with the internet bustling with photographer and photography pages, artists compete for space and an audience. Vivian Maier's story is thought provoking. What might have been her motivation to photograph random people or streets ? Why did she isolate herself? Will I photograph solely for myself, without any audience to derive feedback or inspiration from?    

Got a call from a friend asking me if I would like to join them on a trip to Dzukou valley, Nagaland, as they needed one more person to make the trip happen; I jumped to the opportunity. The itinerary was a simple three day program. We started early on  11th June(June), boarding the 4AM inter city train from Jorhat to Dimapur. We reached Dimapur at 7.30 AM, had our breakfast and booked a tourist taxi to Kohima,  which is about a 2.30 hrs drive. Once in Kohima , we met with Roko and her Eastern Green Tours, and made our way to Viswema village and began our climb. We were informed that the trek from Viswema is comparatively easy with respect to that from jakhama village , which, though shorter(2-3hrs), was more steep . One hour into our climb and I realized how ill prepared I was.  A bag full of clothes that got wet, and thus heavy due to  non stop rains, made body balance and climbing difficult. Moreover, I was carrying too much camera equipment. After three ...

A couple of weeks back, I came across a post by a noted photojournalist(new into the wedding photography market) about his   interaction with a prospective client that went wrong. In the uploaded screenshot was his conversation with his client, where the client states his preference for a particular kind of image effect, and where the photojournalist sarcastically refuses to let go of his ‘many years of learning’ and ‘in-camera expertise’. And no surprise, his fans and followers (except a few) began to belittle the particular prospective client for his lack of ‘taste’ for ‘real photography’. Within no time our photojournalist turned wedding photographer’s post had hundreds of likes and many shares. My take on this is that the ‘client’ is always right. After all he/she is the one who is going to show me the money. My kind of ‘Creativity’ or what I   call ‘Art’ may not necessarily sync with the expectations of my client. I would take great care in getting a clear idea of my...

Off late I have become increasing fond of 'Blurs'. I have been practicing a technique popularly known as 'Shutter Drag' to create impressions such as below. Now, there are so many things to consider viz ideal shutter speed, DOF, flash, pleasing background and also importantly the speed at which I pan the camera with respect to the subject. All these factors need to be in 'sync' for a pleasing impression. But the funny part is that I have absolutely no control as to how the final picture would look like. And this uncertainity or the lack of control, I guess, is what makes the process of creating these impressions so enjoyable.

"A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?" --- Ernst Haas